Online reporting of pseudoephedrine pharmacy sales: does Australia require a mandatory system?

The objective of our research was to compare the reported pharmacy sales of pseudoephedrine-based medication in state where the electronic recording of sales is mandatory, Queensland, with a state where recording is voluntary, Victoria.

Unidentified, unit-record, pseudoephedrine-based medication transaction data (known as ProjectSTOP), for both states, were made available by GuildLink Pty Ltd, the data custodians. Data provided dated from roll-out, 8 November 2005 (Queensland) and 10 August 2007 (Victoria) to 16 October 2012 (the last entry at the time of request). Data were stored on a secure, password-protected computer at the University of Queensland, Australia, where it was prepared and analysed.

The rate of uptake of ProjectSTOP in Queensland compared with Victoria differed significantly; 1 year after roll-out, 72% of pharmacies in Queensland had used the system compared with 41% in Victoria. There were significant differences in transaction rates between Queensland and Victoria; the transaction rate in Queensland was four times greater than Victoria 1 year after roll-out. Our data show that Victoria captured fewer cases of multiple purchases using the same identification (i.e. suspected pseudo-runner activity) than in Queensland (112 compared with 517 cases in 2011).

Our findings show, not surprisingly, that by making the electronic recording of pseudoephedrine-based medication sales mandatory, there is increased uptake and use of the recording system ProjectSTOP. Importantly, by using ProjectSTOP comprehensively, the data can provide useful intelligence for the identification of trends and patterns of activity in relation to the diversion of pseudoephedrine-based medications.